


The Werewolf

by Caesia390



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:55:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 7,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22826776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caesia390/pseuds/Caesia390
Summary: "The werewolf, oh the werewolf, he comes steppin' along. He don't even break the branches where he's goin'..." A more or less chronological portrait of Remus Lupin, a Remus/Sirius collage. "...It's damned if you don't, and it's damned if you do. Be true, 'coz they'll lock you up in a sad, sad zoo."
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin/Original Female Character(s), Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 5





	1. Secrets {James}

xXxXxXx

James despises secrets. He feels that he has a right to know everything he wishes to know. That he chooses to remain ignorant about some things... Well. It's his decision. He still has control.

Lily flaunts her power over him. Secrets glimmer in her eyes, perch at the corners of her smile, and if he could just _reach_ and _capture_ that smile, that glinting... something... If he could just trap her in his arms, her dancing, flying, sparkling laugh... Plunder it from her mouth, her body... If only... If only... She teases him and that infuriates him.

He covets her secrets. He wants them so badly it keeps him up at night; curtains pulled closed, staring into the darkness, yanking off and thinking of ways to attain her. His obsession disgusts him, but he can only imagine a single cure. If it even is possible to possess that... that glimmer. Even if he had her pinned beneath him, completely at his mercy, he suspects she would still be laughing, eluding him.

As much as he wants to slake his need for Lily, he wants to reduce Severus Snape into insignificance. The greasy Syltherin is nothing but an accumulation of things hinted at but never said. Silent and dark and creeping through the filth of his own shame. He had his slinking, shrinking, unobtrusive habits before James ever laid eyes on him; it was up to James to take offense at the Darkness that clings to Severus like a smog. The horror, the power, the endless possibilities... It's all there, lurking in Severus's black eyes, nothing but fleeting shadows and shapes.

James doesn't _want_ to know what goes in Severus's mind. He doesn't want to understand Severus at all. By belittling Severus, steadily crushing him... James tries to deny the fact that the Darkness he despises could be powerful enough to destroy him.

Then... There is Sirius.

Sirius and James have no secrets.

There are things, many things, that they don't acknowledge. Their world is limited to school and daydreams and girls and quidditch. And Sirius's family, Sirius's mood swings, James's need to be in control... These things are present between them, known of, but never spoken out loud. Their friendship balances on the unspoken foundations of leader and subordinate, weak and strong, and shared goals with dissimilar origins.

James says nothing about Sirius and Remus and the... connection, almost palpable, that glues them to each other, gaze to gaze, soul to soul. Possessing and possessed. They have their own dynamic, present but subtly shifting since the very first moment that Sirius and James walked into what they thought was an empty compartment, walked into the story of a sleepy, shy, delicate-looking boy. James was wary, but Sirius was excited, fascinated, enthralled.

James says nothing, but he sees very well.

Remus. Has. Secrets.

 _Werewolf_ barely begins to encompass the lies that dwell within those passive eyes.

xXxXxXx


	2. Malevolence {Snape}

xXxXxXx

It wasn’t hard at all to remember glinting blue eyes, a hand closed around his throat. Odd, how the terror could spring up anew, with all of the memories that had gone after, that should have superceded it...

Black was mad. Black was homicidal. Severus had _known_ , but no one (not Dumbledore, though it was hard, given his own circumstances, to find fault wilth the man for being blind to a person’s darkness) had done anything about it. And Black had torn apart the fabric of his perfect friendships and Black had murdered innocents and Black had sprung free and was coming back for more.

Albus had opened their doors to Black’s werewolf lover.

Snape put a hand to the cool stone wall of his dungeon and tried to repress the growing urge to vomit. It was absurd; he was beyond this. ...Exactly, he was _beyond_ this, so why did all of it insist on coming back?

He remembered a gentle boy with autumn hair and eyes and a shy smile. So kind and placid... infinitely mild, was Remus.

He remembered snapping jaws and slavering tongue and those eyes and knowing, for the first time in his life, that he was going to die. All will to live draining out of him in the face of that inevitable mouth lunging toward him.

He had closed his eyes then, a second before James appeared from nowhere to save the day. Sometimes he felt as though he had never reopened them. Seventeen years later he was still waiting for the jaws to rip into him, still anticipating the end.

Lupin had passed him in the hall the other day, a soft smile too weary to reach his shadowed eyes. “Severus.” A gentle, unassuming word, greeting his colleague, greeting an old acquaintance from school. As if there was nothing at all between them, as if Severus had never seen what lay behind the facade.

Seventeen years ago, gentle eyes too weary, too ashamed to meet his own. And Severus had thought, for a moment, _it wasn’t his fault_. For a moment, he felt only pity, reached out and tentatively touched the thin shoulder. A shuddering breath, and then _those_ eyes gazing at the meal they had lost.

Remus had stared him down, revealing himself, sending a clear message - _stay away_. There had been no apology in those eyes.

Less than a month later, Severus found them in the library. Remus Lupin was devouring Sirius Black. Those delicate hands were tangled in the other boy’s hair as his lips and teeth and tongue crushed into neck and collarbone, Sirius writhing and whimpering like a wounded animal, pressing back with his hips. It had taken Severus several moments to truly comprehend what he was seeing.

 _Together_. Scholar, werewolf, prankster, _murderer_. Twined together. The same.

Let Dumbledore deny it. Let Lupin hide behind those gentle eyes and weary smile. Severus knew.

Thirteen years before, Sirius Black had betrayed his friends and spared his lover. There was nothing to suggest to Severus that Remus Lupin would not do the same. So let him win the hearts of the staff and the students, gathering in sympathy like fallen leaves. Severus would brew a potion to preclude one of his more apparent dangers, and as for the others, he would watch. Watch and wait.

The malevolent arrogance of Sirius Black, the memory of it, the potential for it now that he was loose, hung about Remus Lupin’s back like a possessive shadow.

xXxXxXx


	3. Conditions of Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on hp100.

The first time, Remus shoved him against a bookshelf, shoved hands into his hair and tongue into his mouth. Tortuous rubbing and throbbing and when he pulled back, Sirius couldn't breathe.

"Only because you love me."

His (warm amber) moon-yellow eyes were dry and ruthless, his (gentle, smiling) swollen mouth panting a lewd blood-red.

"If I didn't believe you loved me, Padfoot..."

Desperation and shame and sorrow but Yes! and all he wanted was to reach out and... touch... Gentle. Tentative. Soft. If Remus weren't staring at him trying to believe his own words.

"I love you."

Neglecting _I'm sorry._


	4. Fragmented (1979)

xXxXxXx

Clueless. Idiotic. _Thoughtless…_

“Remus? Remus, what’s wrong with you?”

 _Blind_. Stupid. Hopeless…

“God damn it, Remus! How the hell am I supposed to help you if you won’t talk to me?”

 _Stupid_ stupid stupid…

“FINE! STAY in there! You know, I’m really getting goddamn sick of this, Moony! Why can’t you just…? FUCK!”

Stupid. Fucking. Moron.

“Why won’t you just tell me… tell me what’s wrong?”

Why can’t you just leave me alone?

“Fuck it, Moony… Just fuck it fuck it fuck it…”

Sorry, Padfoot. Sorrier than you can know.

They lean against either side of a thin wooden door. One presses his forehead to it near the top, tracing nonsense patterns with his finger, feeling the grain of the wood. His face is passive, almost serene. The other sits heavily on the floor, his face damp with sweat, mind in turmoil.

_So you can’t keep a job. Well what the fuck do they know?_

But he can’t speak the words. He can picture the anger that would sizzle in Moony’s throat, in his eyes…

It dawns on him: It isn’t the situation but the _injustice_ of it that upsets his friend.

He pictures those eyes, fixed on him, perpetually expectant, perpetually disappointed.

_What do you want?_

_What can I do?_

And he knows what Moony would say: _Nothing._

House him, clothe him, feed him, don’t say a word when he’s late with the rent, don’t say a word to insist that he _doesn’t have to pay…_

Assignments for the Order and he comes back looking tired, looking old…

_We’re barely twenty._

_Barely twenty…_ He jumps up and wrenches the door open. Startled, Moony makes no move to keep it shut, stumbles a few feet into the room.

“Come on, Moony. We never properly celebrated your birthday.”

Remus stares at him in astonishment. Sirius doesn’t give him a chance to argue.

xXxXxXx

An hour later, they are getting jolly drunk and James has joined them. Two hours later, Peter has been tracked down. A stop in every pub, James insists. He wants to get smashed.

“Something to announce,” he slurs, peering into his firewhiskey. He then glances up and flashes all of them his snarkiest grin. “Lily’s up the duff. We’re getting married.”

Peter gasps. Remus and Sirius stare, Sirius’s jaw hanging open.

“You right bastard!”

And then they’re all on him, Sirius especially, drinks and chairs overturned, whoops of congratulation and wallops on the back. The bartender wanders over at the commotion and when he deciphers it gives James a gallon-size stout, on the house; he’ll need it. Sirius shouts to all who can hear that this round’s on him. His best friend and blood brother about to get married, about to be a dad. Perfect strangers now smiling and joking and offering crude advice.

Remus stands aside and smiles gently, his head oddly clear.

James deserves this. He deserves the shouts and the attention and the love and the headaches and the diapers and the nagging and everything, everything he gets…

Remus reflects that none of this will ever be for him.

Sirius glances at him, his own wicked grin faltering a bit.

Not for either of them, he hopes.

He hopes.

He smirks and tips his glass to his flatmate, who hesitates before tipping his glass likewise.

“To the unborn Potter brat!”

Cheers.

xXxXxXx


	5. Wolf and Dog

xxxx

February, 1980

…

Young lovers suffer nightmares.

Remus believed in his dreams.

Sitting up in the middle of a cold night, looking at the black silk spread over his pillow, hearing the complacent snores. What are you doing here? Watching the lines of the smooth, strong back in the moonlight (three nights past; waning moon). How did you come to be here? How is it that you are still in my bed?

Young lovers suffer nightmares.

In his dreams, Remus walked and ran and trudged alone.

…

March

…

Sirius didn’t fear the future.

The fate his parents had held before him like a warning – his father’s large, heavy, frowning brows, lecturing him; his mother’s shrieking voice, rebuking him; his brother’s sly grin, sure of his ruin.

His future was red and white and violent as a werewolf’s bite. His future was green as the killing curse.

Sirius was ready.

And while they frowned and shrieked and smiled, Sirius would laugh.

Because while they frowned and shrieked and smiled, Sirius would take their future – prim and proper and easy and vile - down with him.

…

July

…

Remus despised the present. He hated the restrictions. He hated the scowl on his face, which threatened to become a _snarl_ every time something he requested (politely, ordinarily) was denied.

Turned down for another job and he wanted to bare his teeth and _really_ make them fear.

And then he wished that someone from the Registry would find him and just put him down.

There was a war on.

But they didn’t need that excuse.

…

August

…

Sirius knew damn well what was waiting for him. He accepted it. He embraced it.

What he didn’t know, what frightened him, was what was waiting for Remus. Not giving in, Hell no, until they had him tagged and quarantined, until they had a collar on him, until they locked him in a cage. That, they would fight. Sirius would fight it, even if Remus wouldn’t.

‘No, Sirius. I have to go in. There’s a war on. There’s nothing we can do.’ Calm, forgiving smiles that Sirius had learned not to trust.

Sitting in Order meetings and watching the blank quiet in Remus’s eyes.

Sirius knew damn well what was waiting for him.

What he didn’t know, what frightened him, was what Remus would do.

…

October

…

Remus tried not the think about the future. He tried not to dwell on the past, especially as some aspects of it still slept next to him, still woke up in the morning blinking brilliant cerulean eyes, smile pure and innocent and untouched before Sirius thought up his first prank for the day.

Remus hadn’t even thought about his brother in years, but then the New Moon Massacres began.

He used to have this fantasy. Romulus (blood thick and dark and splattered all about his head and neck, eyes wide and frightened, mouth gasping) had lived through the attack. They said he was dead but Remus just stared at them and knew they were wrong.

Because sometimes he dreamed of a moon that loved him, of running wild and free and sinking his teeth into living bones, bathing his snout in blood… Those weren’t his dreams. They couldn’t be his dreams.

He had the fantasy that really he had been the cold, frightened, unseeing corpse. And Romulus was the monster. Because Romulus had always been a monster. Haughty laugh and sinister smile, Romulus who loathed his weaker, more timid twin, Romulus who said, ‘You’re just the left-over bits of me.’

Romulus lying on the dark, damp forest floor, helpless, terrified. For once, Remus could look down on his brother. For just one moment, looking down, not even shocked, until a huge, horrible weight knocked him down, and Remus remembered no more.

And now Voldemort was giving werewolves power on new moons. The other members of the Order shook their heads and frowned; couldn’t understand the temptation of unbridled violence.

Remus understood perfectly.

Romulus, had he lived, would have leapt at the chance.

The other members watched Remus with wariness, with suspicion in their eyes. They didn’t understand what made him different from the werewolves who turned, who embraced the freedom and the power that Voldemort promised them.

It was the difference between Remus and an identical boy who had once threatened to steal back the face he said was rightfully his alone.

Remus had always hated his brother.

…

December

…

On full moon nights, they used a pen, a cage, magically sealed, because the Registry was watching Remus’s apparation movements. They couldn’t reach Hogsmeade. They couldn’t reach anything but the Ministry-certified containment device hidden in their basement.

Transformations had never been more painful. The wolf had never been this wild before. Padfoot almost lost an eye one month, and then Remus forbade him to join him.

Remus also told him strictly not to watch.

Sirius had never been very good at following instructions.

As a human, he could feel warm, wet tracks flow from his eyes, slow and steady and ceaseless, watching the wolf struggle, desperate, frantic, crazed, to reach him, finally turning on itself out of frustration.

As a dog, he howled to shake the moon with his sorrow, but the wolf didn’t even seem to notice its mate.

He didn’t begrudge Remus the fight in those amber eyes, the resistance.

The time would come when Remus wouldn’t be able to take any more.

Sirius welcomed it. He wanted his lover to lose his stifling passivity, his merciless self-control.

But he bought silver bullets.

When the time came, if the time came, they would go down together. 

xxxx


	6. Despair (1981)

xxxx

Shouting until your throat is raw, breaking dishes and furniture until there is nothing left to break, wanting to transfigure the whole house into porcelain. Smash _everything_ down around him. Force him to step out of his silence and look at you.

Because you know he feels it, too. Feels the same emptiness where he should be, where you should be.

But he won’t let you in.

He never really trusted you.

You fill his silence with doors slamming, with your bike's mighty, defiant roar. The ride whips tears into your eyes and you can pretend it is only that.

xxxx


	7. Musical Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the style of Tom Waits.

Sirius is bleeding,  
But not so's you'd notice.  
Tosses his black mane over his shoulder  
And grins his wicked grin.

Caresses the Bitch's chrome and leather,  
Working the polish in the cracks,  
Tight blue jeans  
Caressing that ass.

To the boys and girls on David Street,  
That bike's his only lover.  
He croons Queen songs to her  
And pretends he doesn't notice  
All those pretty, hungry eyes,  
Mouths open, staring at him.

But Sirius is bleeding.  
'Coz in a second-floor apartment,  
Cheap furnished flat,  
There's a window framed by ivy  
That looks down on the punks and the traffic.

A man sits alone.  
And that man is quiet.  
That man will never whimper.  
That man will never fight.  
And no matter what Sirius does,  
That man's already lost.

Sirius lights a fag  
As the light drains out of the sky.  
A girl in a short skirt, painted cheeks passes  
And Sirius flashes a smile,  
Winks to see her blush.

And when he flexes his muscles  
Under his t-shirt three sizes too small,  
He feels the jagged edges of his heart  
Cut deep, deep into his chest.

Sirius is bleeding.  
And among the grease, sweat, and foodstains  
On that old, faded shirt  
Are spots of red.


	8. The Traitor {Lily}

xxxxx

He saved their lives like he was cursing them. That was how she knew he was telling the truth.

“Traitor in your midst.” His mouth twisting around the words, deep eyes full of contempt for them, for their friends, for himself for helping them.

James had tensed as though he would hit him, and Severus tensed as though he would take the blow.

That was how she knew he was telling the truth.

She didn’t have to wait for Severus to leave, for James to look at her with his eyes hard, his voice dead: “Remus.” Murder in his fist and Lily’s brain singing, _Kill the werewolf!_ her arms clutching Harry close. 

But that would be a rash act. There was no room for rash acts now.

xxxxx


	9. The Secret Keeper

The logical thing would have been for James himself to act as Secret Keeper for his wife and his son.

Sirius Black, who himself had taken to drink (was it when Regulus died? or was it when Remus tried to throw him out that one time, before realizing that Sirius held the deed to their flat?), told James in no uncertain terms that he was not _allowed_ to take such a risk himself. Something about preserving the family life that he and Remus would never be able to have...

Remus had taken to disappearing for weeks at a time. The Ministry restricted werewolf movements, werewolf interaction with Muggles... So Sirius didn't follow him, after the first time, when he found him working at a Muggle bar. Sirius had been questioned by the authorities later (they were questioning everyone, everywhere, hoping for any information to use against Voldemort). They wanted to throw Remus in Azkaban. They settled for a fine.

Days before the Fidelius Charm, James asked him, "What will you do, Padfoot, if they use Remus against you? What will you do if Remus himself wants you over on their side? Will you be able to say no?"

He honestly hadn't expected the look of haggard desperation that was Sirius's response, the, "Jamie... I don't know." He took it like a punch in the gut. Somehow, he supposed, he had been hoping... But Sirius had been desperate for Remus for years. A simple matter like betrayal wouldn't stop him.

And then--"Look, I've been thinking." A Sirius-plan. Guaranteed to be brilliant, insane, and just within the realm of the possible. "Let everyone believe that I'm the Secret Keeper. Let me hide. Let me run. And meanwhile--" Here his voice dropped. The old conspiratorial whisper, but without the mischievous glint. It had been absent for a while. _"Have Peter undergo the charm instead."_

"Peter...?" Peter had been a fading presence in their lives. He and Lily weren't comfortable around each other. He always looked at Harry as though terrified the infant would break in his care. Lily was content to let him think so.

"Yes. Look. James. Let me do this for you. Let me do it for him. Maybe if he sees... I don't know. If he sees..."

"Sirius. We know that there's a traitor." He wouldn't tell Sirius why. Sirius wouldn't understand Snape's duplicity, would probably only compromise the man's position. "You don't honestly think... I mean... It has to be Remus. Whatever they did to get him, he's theirs." James perhaps should have felt sad or hurt, should have felt something like what Sirius felt, but part of him had always known Remus for a Dark Creature, something not to be trusted.

Sirius looking at him with Padfoot's despairing eyes. "I know. But even so... I have to go after him."

"You mean get captured and tortured until they discover that you're no use to them and then kill you."

"Better than just holing up and waiting to be destroyed."

James's level, displeased gaze was lost on Sirius. As, apparently, was his own reference to the Potters' situation.

"He's _with them_ , Jamie. Like you said. I need a chance. Maybe if he sees... Maybe if I lose myself, like he did. And Peter will stay quiet and out of trouble, 's what he's good at, and someday Dumbledore will figure out how to take that crazy bastard down, and you and Lily and the squirt will be safe, and it will all have been worth it."

"And what about you, Sirius?" All the messy emotional stuff they'd never spoken, never even touched... _You're my best friend._ "Your godson needs you."

The wry grin that was all motorbikes and pranks on Slytherin, breaking, somewhat, like after a howler from home. "But I need Remus. If he's lost, so am I."

James didn't say anything against it after that. Peter seemed to throw himself into the role of Secret Keeper, and James was reminded unpleasantly of all the times he'd encouraged the blonde boy at school, only to regret it later when Peter showered him with praise and attention. He had thought that maybe Peter was developing his own life.

But in the end he could look at his wife and son, he could look at the sanctuary that Dumbledore's most powerful magic had wrought, and feel hope.

They would be safe.

xxxx


	10. No Good to Cry {Peter}

xxxx

“It does no good to cry,” his mother used to insist, standing with her hands on her hips and desperate to make him understand. _It does no good to cry_ , even when her own tears flowed.

Graduation was looming. Peter thought he finally understood what she meant.

James didn’t even seem to see him anymore. That glint, that wicked glint when he used to laugh at Peter (He could be funny! And even if he didn’t always know what they were laughing at, what mattered was that _he_ mattered; _his place_ in their group mattered), but now James spent all his time smiling at _her_.

Of course, Lily was beautiful and vivacious and smart and she could actually _talk_ to James. Even if she was play-insulting him. Even if just in half-formed phrases, staring into each other, glistening grey-hazel and bold green eyes, murmuring meaningless words, but then they would lean in for one of those soft, wet kisses like they were holding back, saving it all up for when James would waltz out of the common room with his most self-assured grin, stagger back in an hour later barely able to speak his own name.

Peter couldn’t hate Lily. Peter was Peter and Lily was Lily and James wanted Lily but sometimes James saw _him_ ; James _had_ to know what it meant, Peter all caught up in reflecting James’s greatness back at him, even when Peter couldn’t form the words. Couldn’t begin to say what he wanted, tripping all over himself to get hold of some part of the boy who was the most powerful, confident, brilliant person Peter could ever imagine.

Seven years of being near him, sleeping less than two yards away from him. Seven years of heavy red curtains that could have been pushed aside… If he could kneel by James’s bed, just plead hard enough maybe James would allow him to push them aside… Nights it was only him and James in the room, and Peter sat up in his bed almost electrified with courage… _but not enough._

Because James would reject him, maybe with a laugh, and it was only right when James was so perfect and Peter was so… nothing… Nothing but want and worship, and James _liked_ to be worshipped. He _liked_ to know how unspeakably wonderful he was.

But he already knew. Now that he had her, he didn’t need Peter to tell him…

And Peter didn’t need… anything… but those two yards. Seeing him every morning, every night, every meal in between. James was like a small sun, and all Peter had to do was bask in his glow.

But soon all that would be over.

Peter felt very cold, imagining it.

And it did no good to cry.

It did no good to cry.

He would have to think of something else.

xxxx


	11. Desperation

XXX

He wouldn’t have been anything at all, except for Sirius. After Sirius, he was straight.

No. After Sirius, he needed sex, to prove he could use it, to prove he could have it and not lose control. Hold those women in his arms and want to crush them but. Not. Do it.

And sometimes it really was a wine and dine and forget to call you in the morning. It was like that a lot of times. Most times. After the first couple of years, all the time.

He resented them for not knowing what he was. He resented them because they would shriek and tremble and have to be obliviated if they knew what he was.

He didn’t resent them because they weren’t a murderer, rotting his body away (no soul, because Remus didn’t believe in souls) in- that prison.

He didn’t resent them because of that.

And he didn’t sleep with witches (most times), witches who knew who he was (most times), witches who knew what he was.

He hated them the most, because they were proving their bravery, doing him a favour in exchange for a thrill, to sleep with him.

Remus despised thrill-seekers. He knew what happened to them.

…

The first wolf he killed was just that – a wolf. And Remus only found out later what became of his kind who became feral, who fed, on nights beyond and before the moon. His first emotion was satisfaction. Then disgust. Then horror – what if he died in some other form and didn’t turn back? What was there to say he had ever been human?

It would have given him nightmares, but Remus had years ago taught himself not to dream.

After that, he hunted them.

…

He did dream.

He dreamt that Sirius was innocent.

…But it wasn’t true. It wasn’t.

Why would Sirius want to switch sides?

It didn’t make sense.

…Or it made too much sense.

Remus didn’t know what was worse – that Sirius had done it out of love, or done it out of pure, cold-hearted greed. Or hate. Or… whatever emotion ruled a psychotic’s mind.

It had to be that. There was no such thing as love.

…

He was… between jobs… when Dumbledore’s first owl found him. The Ukrainians hadn’t been able to pay for his clearing out their swamps. Perhaps that was why he opened the letter.

Dumbledore’s weary, apologetic, pleading voice wasn’t enough to convince him.

Pending starvation wasn’t quite enough to send him back to charity and memories.

…But the fact that Sirius Black had escaped from prison.

It wasn’t quite enough, to want to kill his enemy.

But it was just enough, to need to see him again.

XXX


	12. Teenage Witch

Some hot summer in the late 1980s…

***

He hadn’t really intended to come back to Britain. But his last job had been a goblin job, and goblins always paid their fee.

The full moon had passed a week ago. In the emptiness, Lupin felt the old craving start to take hold of him.

He had cash. And time.

Too much time for remembering.

So he found himself in London again.

He found himself in the same old alley, in front of the same old club with piss and vomit fouling the street around him, lights and music throbbing away within.

The name above the door had changed, but he recognized the bouncer, and the bouncer recognized him. He let him in with a nod.

Inside the music was different – more of a plaintive whimper weaving around some repetitive, discordant electric rhythm. The crowd was different. They seemed so much younger. Almost children. Innocent. Ignorant.

Still a mixture of muggles and wizards. The wizards always had that secret, knowing look in their eye. Like that one – that girl – arms tangling above her head as she writhed in rhythm to the music, drawing attention to her low-cut ripped shirt and the leather stretched over her hips – while she locked eyes with him.

Clear, bright blue eyes lined with heavy dark makeup, framed by a shaggy fringe of black hair. Pale, delicate features.

Watching him.

Lupin didn’t venture out of the shadows. He bought a pint and watched the girl dance for the length of time it took to gulp it down. Then he started scanning the crowd for someone who might be a dealer.

Two songs later he had checked around the bathrooms and scored a packet of dope and a hit. He turned toward the dance floor again and there was the girl.

“You look like you’re searching for something,” she said. Her voice sounded surprisingly mature, although she looked like she couldn’t be a day over seventeen. “Maybe you’re searching for me.”

She reached up, twining her arms around him. Her mouth tasted tangy and familiar and sweet and she pushed a pill onto his tongue.

Whatever it was it made the colors brighter and his being here among all these people dancing – youthful bodies, sweat, glitter, booze and drugs – it all seemed so impossible and absurd Remus started to laugh, and then the girl was kissing him again.

Something about her mouth made him want to bite her. He remembered drawing back and laughing.

And then he left her standing on the dance floor while he escaped to his rented flat and fell down into the deep warm embrace of the H.

***

Two nights later he was back. He went to the dealers first – more teenagers. He swallowed a couple of pills and politely refused the coke. It was the smack he was after. He got two packets this time and only then did he make his way out to the music and the bodies jumping and shifting.

He was the one dancing when the girl found him again. She laughed something about having a good time. There was some boy hanging on her. Lupin grinned and launched into a pogo that probably dated him horribly. The girl and her boy both laughed at him, but she was still watching him with those young, open, kohl-rimmed eyes. Clear blue eyes.

It got blurry after that but later he was making out with her intently, and her bra was undone, and his hand was feeling between her legs, under her skirt. Then she was on her knees and Lupin relaxed back into the wall and just let himself feel and feel and feel.

For all her bravado, she fumbled a bit with the length of him, but with the drugs and the music and her eyes looking up at him… everything felt perfect.

He smiled at her as he came.

***

He was back the next night, and the night after that. Drugs and then Nora. Her friends called her Nora.

She invited him back to her place – her friends’ place, rather – and Lupin agreed because he was sure they would have a stash.

He wasn’t wrong. They smoked weed together – it wasn’t what he really wanted but he humored her – and then he went down on her. She squealed and pulled his hair with every taste until he had to reach forward and press his hand onto her mouth and she bit his fingers, hard, when she came.

Then he found one of her friends – another boy, although this one was a few years older, closer to his age. He let his guard down enough to shoot up in the bathroom before stumbling out in the street and apparating to his own room just in time to collapse.

***

It seemed only polite to return the invitation. And then it was just the two of them in his empty flat. Nothing but a mattress on the floor, top ramen, his needles, and his drugs. Not even any books. He had learned to travel light.

She looked surprised but unphased at the sparseness of their surroundings. Then she cast a numbing charm on her throat and stalked toward him with a wicked gleam in her eyes and – those eyes, that mouth – learned how to give a proper blowjob.

He was the one pulling her hair and thrusting deep into her throat as he came, hissing a noise that wasn’t a name.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” he finally asked her. “Where are your parents?”

Nora shrugged. “Mum travels abroad. Dad tends the house. I’m left to myself most times.” She looked at him like she was daring him to care.

He didn’t.

He simply rolled toward her for another devouring kiss.

***

That was how the time went – one week into two weeks – blowing all his cash on drugs for himself and Nora. She would do weed and ecstasy but refused the harder stuff. So not as stupid as he had feared.

She didn’t seem to harbor any more romantic feelings than teenage lust, and Lupin was happy to oblige. His time and his money would soon be running out anyway. He had to get to his hideout before the next full moon.

He could feel it turn, feel it in his blood, just barely beginning to wax from a crescent. He felt sick in his bones but something about it made her smell, her taste… all the more tantalizing. Just as well it wouldn’t last.

***

Out of curiosity, he had started to play with her arse when he made out with her, went down on her. She giggled and squealed the first few times. Then one day he turned her to face the wall and got down on his knees and tongued her there until she cried out and moaned. He thrust his fingers into her vagina and his tongue into her arse until her legs shook and she could barely hold herself up.

Then he kissed and nibbled on her pert, young cheeks and then eased her down to lie on the mattress. He pressed her down, cast a quick lubrication spell, and pushed into her. She stiffened and whimpered and clenched around him. He held still a moment to let them both calm down.

After a while he could feel her relax and then make shallow thrusts back onto his cock, gasping each time he went deeper. He felt her body quake around him and it was… almost as good as the drugs.

***

He woke up to a disconcerting dream of Hogwarts. The sun was too bright and his head was aching and someone was pacing the dorm room reciting evasive counter-curses.

No. No, it was his temporary flat in London, he was an adult, and the someone was Nora, who was indeed pacing and muttering counter-curses to herself.

Lupin listened for a moment. “ArovitARa,” he corrected. “Emphasis on the Tar. …What are you doing?”

Nora shrugged. “The Defense against the Dark Arts prof was a moron last year. So some of us study on our own.”

He listened another moment, watching her body against the morning light. She was young but she already had weight to her hips, her breasts. She was lovely. He felt like a thief.

“What’s your real name?” he asked her.

“Nora,” she answered easily. She finished her curses and then turned her head slightly to catch his eye. “Nymphadora Tonks.”

Remus stared at her a moment, knowing he recognized the name, waiting for realization to hit. _Nymphadora Tonks_ … Of course. Of course!

He barked out a laugh. Tonks. She’s his cousin. Of course.

Nymphadora watched him with growing puzzlement as his laugh turned into a chuckle and then he was lurching into the loo to vomit out the entire, meagre contents of his digestive tract, retching for minute after minute.

Gods. His cousin. Of course.

“…Are you all right? What’s the matter?”

Remus turned and looked at her.

The eyes. The hair. The face. The _smell._

“I need you to go,” he muttered. _Obliviate._ But his wand was over somewhere by the mattress.

She was outright grimacing now, almost a sneer. “What’s your problem, asshole?”

Lupin took a moment to cough up another mouthful of bile. Then he composed himself. “I know you,” he said. “I know your… mother.”

Nymphadora’s eyes widened, her face grew slack. Then she spun around and grabbed her clothes.

She dragged her shirt on quickly, her hair coming through it a golden blonde. As she drew on her shorts her legs grew longer. When she stepped out of the flat she wore a different face.

Not that Lupin noticed.

He leaned on the toilet and thought of the wasted drugs and his wand in the corner of the flat.

He thought to himself, _Obliviate._

***


	13. Ethics

XXX

He lets his hand drift upward, under her skirt, over the fine hair on her thigh. She breathes a nervous giggle, and he doesn’t look up to catch the excitement and uncertainty in her eye.

While Sirius Black is somewhere in the castle. Used a knife (knife, not claws; they would have caught the claws, and Sirius, even crazed, must be too careful for that), knife naked in his hands (under the fur), hunting.

While Remus Lupin offers comfort to a (wanton, available) frightened student. Who bites her lip and has no fear in her eyes.

Not for him.

Not for anything she should fear.

He pulls on the elastic of her underwear, pulls it down her legs and over her shoes, and she should feel anything but proud that her seduction of the shy, handsome, mysterious Professor Lupin succeeded.

She forgets all of that when he thrusts into her, hurting her, but his (lying, practiced) amber eyes are gentle, apologetic, calm. And she smiles forgiving at him while he takes her.

His strong hand in her hair, his mouth on her mouth, his hand on her breast, and his penis in and out and into her while she claws closer.

He’s better at it than any of the boys.

She knew he would be.

She loses that thought in a moan, falling back on his desk because her back was hurting and it’s soso good…

Later, she forgets everything.

As he wipes himself off, he knows he’ll have no trouble meeting her eyes in the next 7th years’ class, knowing what she doesn’t know.

Knowing so many things no one else knows.

While Sirius Black prowls the halls, looking for another kill. Trying to kill a boy Remus remembers as an infant in Sirius Black’s protective arms.

Even though Dumbledore gave the all-clear, face mild yet wary, while Severus Snape tried to pierce Remus’s soul with those accusing black eyes.

Nothing.

But an empty smile.

Nothing for them.

He never promised anything.

He doesn’t _know_ how Black is getting in.

And until someone _teaches_ him how Sirius Black (killer, comrade, lunatic) could have turned _traitor_ , Remus Lupin doesn’t know a damn thing.

Not for anyone.

Not for a child.

Not for a victim.

Not for himself.

XXX


	14. Headlines

xxxx

'There are no heroes.'

This is the title of Rita Skeeter's first article following the war.

Ever attuned to the times, she fills her missive with vindictive prose, echoing the sentiment of a generation too-often betrayed.

Perhaps Harry Potter was a hero, but Harry Potter abandoned them to Reconstruction, washing his hands of the world he had saved.

Perhaps Ronald Weasley was a hero, but he disappeared before the final sword was drawn; his body was never found.

Perhaps Hermione Granger was a hero, but as more and more of her tactical decisions come to light - her sorties against the ministry, her ruthless sacrifice of her comrades - the survivors are more eager to seek her blood for the lives she lost, rather than praise her for the lives she saved.

Perhaps Albus Dumbledore was a hero, but he died before he could see the fruition of all his work, and perhaps the war was his doing as much as it was Voldemort's.

Perhaps Neville Longbottom was a hero, but he closes his mouth and points his finger with all the rest - he, too, suffered and was never saved.

Perhaps Ginevra Weasley and Draco Malfoy were heroes, but all the people see on them are the scars of Dark Marks on their arms.

Perhaps Severus Snape was a hero. His death went unremarked. His sins, his sacrifices - unremembered.

Remus Lupin is a hero. One only has to look at him as he shakes open his copy of the Daily Prophet, perusing it with his one good eye, clasping it in his one whole hand, the other limb wasted to a near-unrecognizable twist of bone and sinew. Just enough digits to turn the page.

Remus Lupin is a hero because he suffered at a Death Eater's silver hand, and Remus Lupin is a hero because Remus Lupin survived. There are no stains on his record. Twice suspected, twice innocent, Remus Lupin has never been a traitor.

Remus Lupin sits in front of the Great Hall with the other teacher-survivors, McGonagall haggard in Dumbledore's seat, and if any adult earns respect from the cynical teenage students (survivors), it is him.

The children have learned that are worse things to fear than a werewolf.

There are no potions masters left. Remus locks himself in the shack on full-moon nights, and if one improvement came out of the war, it's the strength of _containment_ charms.

This pain is the only pain he can feel.

These nights are the only nights he can _forget._

In the mornings, in the haze of just-awakening, Remus remembers Severus Snape. He feels the echoes of agony in his flesh, in every atom of blood and skin and bone and scar, and he huffs a breath of strained laughter into the frosty air, grateful that Snape is dead.

xxxx


	15. After Forgiveness

The One Thousand and One Nights  
(After Forgiveness)

Night the Within The First Dozen:

The touch was gentle, warm, rasping fingertips on his arm, his shoulder. Remus imagined he could feel every ridge of Sirius's fingerprints, pushing aside and flattening the fine hair on his skin. Every millimetre of flesh was supersentized.

Remus was smiling.

Sirius grinned, watching the crease between Remus's brows, the twitch of his eyelids, feeling the _smooth skin_ beneath his fingers and waiting for the hitch of breath. _There_ , and then his hand flattened, his fingers finding the knob of bone at Remus's neck, tugging him, meeting him, and the _kiss..._

Through the sound of his own heart pounding, Remus heard Sirius whimper. But the kiss was strong and wet and needy, so needy that Remus had clenched his hand in Sirius's soft, expensive shirt and was pulling on it, almost ripping it off in his effort to _drag Sirius close._

Rearranging himself so that Remus was pressed against him, thin, hard chest shoved against his own, knees everywhere, and how were they going to...? But there, toppling over, and that delirious pressure of cock against cock, nevermind the trousers.

Remus was laughing. Sirius whined. Nibbling at Remus's lips. Worrying them, and Remus gasping.

Sirius was the silky hair in his hands, the heavy, grinding warmth that Remus jerked against, the teeth around his mouth. Sirius with his eyes closed, concentrating so hard in that moment and Remus gasped and moved faster, watching the creases in Sirius's brow, the solemnity in his closed eyes, but then Remus couldn't see or think a thing because he was coming.

Remus moaning and shuddering against him, and Sirius groaned, pressed in so close so close... Could smell the sweat and the musk and the laundry soap, pressed so close so close against the man in his arms, and his orgasm was a cry, a rending, a sticky, damp sob.

Remus recovered quickly, stripped the clothes off his soiled, over-heated body, sat staring at Sirius and grinning, glowing.

Sirius smiled. Brilliant. Broken. So spent he couldn't move.

Broken.

...


End file.
